Nokia 3250 - Nokia 3250

Summary

Our Score

7/10

Review Price free/subscription

A 2-megapixel camera is built in and you are provided with the PC Suite software for synchronising with a PC and the required USB cable (though Nokia sticks stolidly to Pop-Port at the handset end so don’t’ lose or damage the cable).

Hidden in that apps list above was mention of the music player, and the 3250 is being pushed as a music playing handset. It is disappointing, with that in mind, that there is a mere 10MB of built in memory. This is simply far too little for any phone with music playing pretensions, so it is fortunate that flash memory cards are supported and that Nokia chooses to supply a 128MB card.

The format that’s been chosen is MicroSD (also known as TransFlash). These cards are absolutely tiny, and Nokia almost seems to be poking fun by locating the slot for the 3250’s card in an almost inaccessible spot on a part of the casing that is only revealed when you swivel the bottom section through 90 degrees. You’ll need fingernails to lift a rubber flap that protects the slot and also to push the card in to its slot and to extract it. Don’t try this without a safety net, by which I mean don’t do it in any location where dropping the card could result in its loss forever.

So, on to the swivelling, then.

Swivelling has a role both when you use the camera and when you play music. The 2-megaixel camera’s lens sits on the bottom right edge of the handset. You can use it without swivelling the number pad section at all, by running the camera software from the 3250’s menu. The screen turns into a viewfinder in landscape format, so that you orient the handset longways and then shoot pictures and video and access the various options via the mini joystick and softkey buttons.

But you can also call the camera into play by swivelling the number pad through 90 degrees to the left or right. Again you hold the handset longways, and swivelling one way points the lens towards you, the other points it away from you. Now it is difficult to access the joystick and soft menu buttons beneath the screen, but you can get to a bank of buttons which were on the back of the handset pre swivel. One of these is used to shoot, while two of the others invoke the maximum 8x digital zoom.